


The Sound of Silence

by Atanih88



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Sex, Case Fic, M/M, Season/Series 07, Slash, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:02:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atanih88/pseuds/Atanih88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A break to get his head together doesn't quite go as planned for Dean Winchester. Maybe he shouldn't have chosen a place where killer plants are dragging people away. Oh. And Sam shows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_reversebang. This is the fic I wrote to the prompt art by the very talented gnatkip. Beta'd by audreytiphaine. Proper notes and thank you's at the end. Hope you enjoy the fic and the gorgeous art ♥
> 
> Please find the Art Master Post [HERE!](http://gnatkip.dreamwidth.org/87016.html)

It comes down to one thing. Sam decides to stop ignoring Dean when he comes back to the motel room post-case and finds Dean with a flask to his lips. Another one.

Dean still doesn't quite know how they've ended up here. Can't really think about it right now, can't do much more than curse, fist banging on the floorboards like he's trying to bring the house down and Sam over him, radiating heat like a furnace, head buried against Dean's neck, teeth gnawing at the collar bone there.

His breath explodes out of him with each thrust and he blinks the sweat out of his eyes, his back arches as Sam pushes in again, opening him up more, nailing him to the fucking floor with rasped breaths.

Bastard isn't even using a condom and Dean can feel him—doesn't think he's ever felt Sam so fucking much—hips slapping against the back of his thighs, hands pressing bruises into Dean's hips. The daze of alcohol is just a buzz now, way in the back of his head but he can still smell it, can feel it, sticky sweet against his cheek where it'd spilled on the floor. It'd fallen when Dean had thrown the first punch, the crack of his knuckles against Sam's jaw not nearly enough.

Later he'll try to remember how it got to this—tearing at each other, Sam's hand pushing down against his cheek, biting at his chin, his throat, his shoulder. Dean, tugging at Sam's jeans, and grinding into the thigh shoved between his. His head landing in the pool of alcohol, grunting and spreading his legs, matching the angry fury of Sam's movements.

That first push in, pain knifing up his back, torn into, the meat of Sam's ass under his hand, fingers digging in, dragging Sam in with his teeth gritted against the pain and against the friction of Sam's stomach, hard and damp rubbing against Dean's cock over and over.

Sam slides a hand up and underneath Dean's head, ignoring the mess of alcohol. Dean feels the long fingers molding themselves to the curve of his skull, then curling, fisting the short strands and yanking Dean's head back.

He's being pounded into the fucking floor and he has one leg wrapped tight around Sam's waist—he stops hitting the floor with every thrust, flattens his hand as his spine scrapes across the floor, the tips of his fingers dig into the hard wooden floor and he loosens his grip on Sam's ass only to grab at him harder, tilt his hips up into each sharp fuck and hiss out with the bittersweet pain of every one.

He lets go, tangles his fingers in Sam's hair, the strands wet with sweat and clinging to the webs of his fingers and they're both panting loud.

And shit Sam's mouthing at his chin now, lips skimming past as Sam slaps one hand down net to Dean's head, pushing himself up to stare down into his face. His forehead is lined with exertion, mouth open, looking all soft. He's looking at Dean's mouth and his hips are slowing, pushing in deep, slow and thick. He stops there, grinds down, slow circles.

Dean watches as Sam's eyes flutter closed, his mouth hardens and he drops his head to the space on the floor right beside Dean's, cheeks pressed together, groaning right into Dean's ear as he starts shuddering against him. And Dean can feel it; he blinks up at the ceiling, like he's short circuiting, not quite understanding what he's meant to do with that.

Then Sam tucks in closer.

"Dean."

Sam lifts up enough to slide his hand between them but he doesn't pick his head up off the floor.

When Dean comes, it's with Sam's soft dick still inside him and his teeth locked on his brother's shoulder.

~

He shifts in his seat, mouth tightening as he feels the discomfort. He thinks maybe he should've taken the time, washed himself down. But he thinks of the bruises on the side of his neck, the bloom of color on his hips. His stomach rolls, a heady mix of fear and guilt.

Arousal.

The first time the phone rings, he picks it up, doesn't bother looking at the screen, and tosses it in the backseat. It clinks against the bottle of Jack still inside the store bag.

He turns up the music and keeps his eyes on the road.

  


~

"Well, don’t you look a little down in the dumps."

Dean looks up from the papers he has scattered over the table and glances up at the very fine piece of woman who's standing at his table. She's got her dark hair pulled back and pinned up and the apron's a little loose around her hips. He can see a hint of skin where her top's ridden up. And then she actually sets a glass and a bottle of Jack D's on the table and he thinks he's died and gone to heaven. His kind of woman.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Yeah, well. If you and your people hadn't been such a pain in the ass I wouldn't be looking like the shit the cat dragged in. Ever think of that?"

She shrugs, sits down and kicks her feet up onto the chair Dean's on, ankles crossed right between his legs. Dean looks down at them. He doesn't really appreciate them being that close to the goods. When he looks back at her she has an arm slung over the back of her chair and she's pouring the whiskey into the short tumbler, her lips tilting up into a smile as she nudges the glass at him across the graffiti covered surface of the table before she screws the cap back on.

Dean shakes his head but he picks it up anyway, ignoring the little flare of guilt as the smell of it hits him, strong and familiar and dry. He drinks the two fingers of whiskey in one go and sets the glass back down.

There's music on, and Dean doesn't know why. The jukebox isn't worth shit and the songs keep stuttering to a standstill and besides, there aren't enough people filling the bar anyway. There's old Duke sitting at a corner of the bar, the ugly-ass burgundy velvet of the barstools is ripped in some places and yellow foam is trying to push out through the cracks. There's Carol's boss behind the bar, wiping down the counter and then there're a few more townies over by the dart board. A handful of them really.

Havenview Valley—not really a valley—isn't a very lively place. In fact when Dean had driven up here a week and a half ago on the heels of another hunt, he'd thought he was walking into a ghost town.

"Just remember I'm letting you stay over at the B&B free of charge, why don't you."

Dean kisses his teeth, gives his head a quick tilt, and looks back down at the papers on the table. "Yeah, gotta be grateful for the little things." He mutters. He wraps his fingers around the glass and tilts it at her. "Gonna pour me another one for my trouble?"

"Haven't seen anything yet," she says, but uncaps and pours another one.

Before Dean can answer though, his phone starts vibrating against the table, blue light flashing and lighting up the name on display. Sam.

Dean rolls his shoulders, reaches for the refilled glass and knocks that one back too. He doesn't pick up the phone even if his stomach is clenching. He slides forward in his chair forward, widening the space between his feet as an image slips, unbidden, past the barrier he's been trying to put into place for the past week or so.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Carol staring down at the phone. He just sets the glass back down and goes back to checking over what he has, the scribbled, half-assed notes he's made. He's not a note taker but he has to admit that he's gotten too used to libraries and laptops and maybe he should have thought this out a little more before he came into the town.

The writing blurs a little and he wipes a hand over his eyes. The phone continues to vibrate; Dean can feel it under his hand where it rests against the table. He's tired. But that's what you get when you're pulling people out of houses in between three and four AM on a regular basis with no clue as to what's happening. Although he's got a lead.

He stares at the blue ink on the paper. Three names, a date and some vague details connecting them to the history of the town. This thing goes back to the 1920's.

The phone stops buzzing and the song in the background dies again. Someone over by the darts groans and calls out across to the boss, "why haven't you chucked that thing out yet, Harris?" The man grumbles something in reply but keeps on cleaning up; it’s not like he has much of a choice when his one and only barmaid is sitting across from Dean doing jack. Seems to be the way this town works. He wonders how it's even still standing with everything working against it.

Course, as it turns out, when people try to leave, they don't end up in good shape.

And it they stay, they don't end up in good shape either.

"Um, can I ask you a question?"

"Least I can do after a lady buys me a drink," he says with a shrug, but his tone isn't very inviting. Not that that'll hold her back.

"Alright. Who's Sam?"

Dean looks at her, looks back at the bottle of Jack and he's not quite sure why he doesn't actually reach for it. He picks up the pen on the table and sets the ball point against the wrinkled paper. His notes are never as neat as Sam's. When he's with Sam he never actually has to take notes.

"My brother."

"Oh." She folds her arms across her chest. "You guys have a fight? Cause that's not the first time you've ignored his calls."

Dean sends her a cool look and puts the pen back. Who's he kidding, he's not gonna be finding out anything with a few names and a fucking pen. "Hey. Tell me something," he leans forward, voice lowering and he waits until she mimics him, interest sparking in her eyes and her mouth curling up a little at the edges, "how come you didn't talk this much when I got here? I sure could've used the help. You know. Or a warning about your local wildlife and how it likes to play with tourists."

The interest slides right off her face, mouth clamping shut and flattening out. The arms she's got crossed tighten and he sees her fingers curling around her own waist. He lets his eyes linger on the way that pushes her breasts up, nice and soft against her top. He's only human. But then he remembers something else—a tattoo just his hovering over him, etched onto taut tan skin and damp with sweat. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, tries to rub off the sense memory.

He's completely screwed in the head. He lifts his eyes and meets her gaze. "You could've saved me a lot of trouble," he continues, tone a lot more serious.

"We're helping you now, aren't we?" she says, but her face is shuttered now and she's pulling her feet off of Dean's chair, sitting up properly.

She'd been all mouth the day Dean had arrived in town and the rest of the people in the place—a population of no more than fifty or so—hadn't been much better. They'd wanted him out of there and they'd made it clear more than once.

That was, until Dean had dragged one of them out of a house that had been swallowed completely in under ten minutes. Well. He hadn't done much. The kid's parents had been in there too and he'd had a choice in his hands.

He'd dragged out the kid.

He doesn't want to be a dick but it's gotta be said. "Yeah. But if you'd cooperated earlier then maybe what happened... wouldn't have."

She straightens up. "Look, it's bad enough that we're trap—"

"Hey. I know. Believe me. I'm the outsider here and you had no reason to trust me—"

"Exactly. But we're past that now. You helped us and," she shrugs, pours another drink and this time drinks it herself, "maybe you're not just a pain in the ass." She shakes her head and pushes her hair back from her face. "That kid—we'd just gotten so used to it happening." She shrugs. "I think we've just been real tired of hoping, you know?"

Yeah. He can relate to that. He rests back and watches as she puts the glass back. The glass is smudged by fingerprints. She starts turning the glass between her fingers and the reflection of the light stays in the exact same place.

The silence is nice and as they watch each other Dean considers doing something stupid.

Carol's nice. But then isn't that the problem? Nice, normal, good. That never quite works out for him. Winchesters take the fucked up road. It's in the rule book. Like fucking one's brother. That's in there somewhere.

"Um," she reaches for a stray lock of hair; gaze still locked on the glass and tucks it behind her ear and Dean waits, "look. My shift finishes soon. You wanna maybe wait and uh, walk back with me or something?"

Dean stares at her. Realizes he'd like to and not just for the promise of what would be pretty hot sex.

The jukebox jerks back to life and Dean winces at the bad music, he shakes his head and looks down at his hands. "I don't think that'd be such a good idea."

Carol sits up and leans a hand on the table, mouth opening to say something but the sound of the bar door swinging open has what little clientele there is turning to see. The guys playing darts pause in their game to look towards the door and the light is weaker there. Dean's commented once or twice on how stingy they are with it. The only decent light in there is the one that pools around the bar area and he's surprised that the people playing the darts game can actually hit the damn board.

He forgets about the lighting though when he takes in the shadowed form. He doesn't even need to see the guy's face. He can see the breadth of Sam's shoulders, the long legs and the stance. He's looking around the bar and even though Dean can't make out Sam's face properly, he knows the moment Sam spots him because he stills for a second, back straightening just a little more and then he's moving towards him.

There's an old ballad playing in the background. No one's talking and the tension in the room has rocketed up. It reminds Dean of the first night he'd stepped foot in here. Except now they know he's on their side. Even if he hasn't been that much help.

Carol is sitting up in her seat, looking from Dean to Sam and back again.

For his part Sam only spares the other patrons a quick glance before going back to staring at Dean. And he's not looking any happier than the last time Dean saw him.

Dean leans back in the chair, tries to calm the wave of nausea that washes over him and thinks it's ironic that when _he's_ the one that needs time, Sam is always ready to get in his face, determined to keep Dean from ignoring him.

Dean leaves his hands on his lap, if only to keep himself from reaching for the bottle.

Sam's got his stuff thrown over his shoulder and a hand inside his pocket as he stops in front of Dean's table. His eyes sweep over Carol who's staring up at him with a frown and then notices the bottle and the one glass on the table. Then the phone that's right there. His mouth tightens, fingers letting go of the strap of his bag in a quick flex before curling around it again.

"Hey," he says, "we need to talk."

Carol finally stops staring at Sam. The look she gives Dean isn't exactly what he'd call impressed. "Is this Sam?"

Dean wars with amusement and indignation on his brother's behalf. "Sam, Carol. Carol, this is my brother." He folds his arms, stretches his legs and crosses them under the table. "Carol and her mom own the local B&B."

Sam looks down at her. "Hi." It's short and clipped. He shrugs his shoulders, movement quick and unconscious, like he's shaking off some weight he doesn't realize he has. "So. Can we talk?"

Carol rolls her eyes and stands up. She picks up the bottle, tilts it at Dean in silent question.

Dean shrugs. "I don't think Sam's really in the mood for a drink." He looks at Sam. "Right Sam?" Dean hadn't thought it'd be possible for Sam's jaw to get any tighter but it does and he shifts where he stands, still towering over the table. When he doesn't say anything, Dean gives Carol a smile that isn't so nice. "We're good."

"Alrighty," she says, drawing the word out and she takes the bottle and the glass with her.

Dean throws a quick glance at his watch. Just a little past eight.

He stands up, not glancing at Sam as he grabs the papers, shuffles them together and then just folds them over. Sam frowns at that. It figures he'd even take issue with the way Dean folds fucking paper.

He tucks them away in his jacket pocket and stands up, walking around Sam. "Come on."

He tips his head in goodnight at Harris and the boys and gets a few waves from some of them, a huff from Harris himself. They don't exactly like him. They tolerate him and right now, they're all side-eyeing Sam. Two new comers in such a short amount of time isn't something that's going to go down well and Dean thinks he'd rather let Carol deal with that one.

Dean slips outside, shoving his hands into his pockets as he nudges the door open with his shoulder. He can hear Sam right behind him, steps heavy over the music in the background. He stops just outside the bar door though, eyes narrowed as he looks at the surrounding buildings, waiting for Sam to join him. The door swings shut behind Sam.

Outside, the silence is unsettling. It's like someone's shaken out a giant blanket and covered the town with it, muffling any possible sounds. There's the rotting metal squeak of the little metal sign swinging lightly overhead, naming the bar for any passersby.

Dean thinks it's still early on, nothing moving under the thin skin of the shadows. But it's in the air, he can smell it already, that tinge of sweetness in the air, though it isn't as obvious near the bar. The smell of alcohol and smoke are almost a good enough camouflage to cover it up. And he knows it'll get worse, it always does until his head is full of the smell and he has to sink his head into a filled tub just to get rid of it.

The sky is mostly clear and what little stars are out disappear from view as the clouds, darkened by the night, drift across. The moon stands alone, nestled in a clear slice of it.

The silence stretches and gains a different weight. He can feel Sam's eyes on him like a brand. They’re the same ones that had made Dean feel like he was slowly losing it.

It had been that way since Sam had gotten back.

At first that'd been okay—Dean hadn't needed much more than that, doesn't even know how he managed the relief, almost crushing in its weight, that he'd felt when he'd come back from the store to find Sam sitting outside his room.

He'd stopped on the spot and just stared as Sam got up, dusting off his jeans and staring off towards some point that wasn't Dean.

"You got the keys?" he'd said. And Dean had tugged the room key out of his pocket and tossed it at him. Then he'd looked at Dean, stilled as he'd focused on the paper bag tucked up against Dean's other side. And his jaw had tightened. He'd picked his stuff up off the ground and then he'd just turned away, unlocking the door to the room and going inside without waiting to see if Dean would follow. Bobby had told him to lay low for a while and that's what he'd been doing so they stayed there and it'd been pretty much silence while Sam alternated between his runs and going through whatever old texts Bobby had left with them.

He hadn't ignored Dean, not quite. He'd answered when spoken to, or mentioned it if he found anything worth pointing out. Dean had taken to uncapping the flask at shower times.

It was when those silences went away, and he stopped pretending Dean wasn't there, that Dean began to understand how insects under a microscope felt. He'd caught Sam watching him.

It never lasted long. But they were these serious, sober looks. It'd made the shaky ground Dean had felt himself standing on feel like it was crumbling, rotting away right out from underneath him.

So the story in the newspaper had been Dean's lifeline. He'd just brushed up on the details, not enough to warrant coming to take a look but enough that he was willing to risk it. Sam had been meeting up with Bobby, going over anything new. Dean had packed his stuff up, put in a call to Bobby and made the two day drive to Havenview Valley.

Dean hadn't expected the calls to start coming so soon, barely a few days after he'd left.

Deep down, he hadn't expected them to come at all.

Beside him Sam huffs a sigh and shifts restlessly and despite the new state of zen he'd been harping on about before the truth had blown up in their faces, despite that, that energy reminds him of a younger Sam—anger and nerves twisted and pent up with nowhere to go.

He looks at him and isn't surprised to find Sam's eyes on him. They may not be on the best of terms right now, but that sync he feels when Sam is around is still there, everything in him tuned to Sam. It's what makes them good together. It's what had made Dean want his brother back so badly when he'd shown up in the middle of the night and dragged his him away from Stanford.

He's surprised he still remembers that so clearly. It feels like decades have been ripped out of him since then.

There're sudden cheers from inside the bar, breaking through the thick silence and Sam finally looks away from Dean, eyes taking the same path over the buildings as Dean's just a few moments ago.

"I thought you said there was a B&B."

Dean arches a brow at that then nods and steps off onto the pavement, making his way up the main street to where the B&B is.

The streetlights are few and far between, and not all that effective. The light they provide is watery at best, pale pools of light that barely brush the sides of the buildings. Aside from the two of them, there's no one else outside, most people already inside their houses, doors locked and curtains drawn. Not that that's much protection. They've been finding that out the hard way for years now.

Sam walks a step or so behind him and it makes Dean fight to keep his shoulders from tensing and hunching up protectively around him.

"So," he says, mainly just to kill the silence and glances over his shoulder at him, "you and Bobby found anything?"

"Right." He clucks his tongue and faces forward again.

There's movement out of the corner of his eye and his step doesn't even falter. His eyes narrow on it, squints and he catches it. It's slow, nowhere near as fast as Dean has seem it move but the thick rope of kudzu twists itself tighter around the corner of a building. Like a snake trying wring the last bit of life of a mostly dead prey. His eyes flick back to the front. They've still got time.

"Is that it?" Sam asks and he's looking at the kudzu too.

"You read up on the case?"

"Bobby passed on a few details after you called a few days ago." And there it is, that ring to Sam's voice that makes Dean think of a tight rope walker, a little too tense, too aware, but loose enough to keep walking that rope with enough control that he's guaranteed to reach the end of it.

"Yeah? He have anything to say on it?"

There's a beat of silence and then Sam stops walking. "Seriously?"

Yeah, here it comes. Dean stops too, tilts his head back, eyes closing for a brief second in a bid to keep his calm before he turns to face his brother. "Seriously, _what_ , Sam?"

For a moment Sam just stares at him, jaw hard and looking like he's attempting to grind his molars to dust there. "You left."

Dean just rocks back on his heels, nods once. "So did you." It's not a great come back but it's what he's got. And it works because Sam is glaring at him nice and hard as Dean gives him that 'is that all?' look before turning to continue on up the road.

The majority of the buildings they pass on the way are empty things, the second floors completely covered in wild green that looks a dark blue in the night. Cords of kudzu are wrapped round and round, some of them mummified, some bursting through the porches and already halfway down the steps.  
When Dean had gotten here himself, he'd thought there'd been a mistake, nothing to find. It had looked dead. Right at the edge of town is an abandoned store, the vines having crawled their way over the right side of the front and all over the back, too. The windows were cracked, their color a murky grey, the kind where dust has been left to lie too long and has caked up on itself. The sign across from it had looked little better than the town itself.

The B&B isn't like that though.

He turns into the little side street, Sam following behind him, taking in the town around them and seeing what's what. The town's only Bed and Breakfast stands out in the middle of all the aged buildings.

It's a big place, was probably a mansion back in the day, set against a backdrop of trees not unlike the ones that line the road into town. There's an old age elegance to it, even with the kudzu wrapping around the beams of the front porch, little sprigs of purple flower sprouting here and there. There's even a swing on the deck, one of those two-seater ones that'll most likely wake the neighbors if someone's looking to have a decent make out session on it. There's the smallest hint of vines there, curled almost gently as opposed to the strangling look they've taken on everywhere else, curling around the metal links holding the swing.

The door is paneled with glass, and Dean can see the buttery yellow of warm light inside. He can just make out a small bit of movement at the counter near the doorway, and opens the door to the sound of bells going off above his head.

The woman at the counter looks up and her eyes crease into a smile as she spots Dean. "Did Carol stay behind?"

Dean nods. "Yes ma'am, don't think her shift'll finish till a little later."

"Alright. Old Harris will walk her over later, I'm sure." She nods towards the archway leading into the dining room at the other side. "There's fresh pie if you feel like a slice a later." Then her eyes shift to Sam standing behind him and her back straightens a little, the age lining her face changing, giving her a harder look. "And who might this be?"

"Uh," Dean looks over his shoulder to see how Sam is handling that one and actually feels a little surprised at seeing the puppy eyes out, feels unsettled at how easy his brother's masked the bad vibes between them, "this is my brother Sam. He's here to lend me a hand with this." Yeah. Not exactly the reason he's here but close enough. It gets the wary glint to leave her gaze as she nods.

"Welcome to Havenview Valley, Sam," she says then, "if you're half as much help as your brother then we're happy to have you."

"Um, thanks…" his 'I guess' is muttered and there's a frown on his face too. Dean almost smiles at that.

He nods at her again. "We'll be going up, I have a feeling I'll be needing that pie later."

She smiles at him again. "Well have a good night boys."

They're quiet as they go up the stairs and Dean thinks Sam's a little surprised at the state of the place. It's as far away from the holes they stay in to warrant a little bit of awe, Dean thinks. Even the stairs are fancy, intricate details carved into the balustrade Dean's hand is trailing as he follows Sam up the stairs.

Dean's room is at the end of the corridor on the first floor and he heads straight over, the sound of their steps muffled by the carpet. The window at the end of the hallway is half obscured by the familiar leaves of the kudzu, leaves poking out from beneath the vines to press against the glass like it's trying to cover as much space as possible.

Dean flips on the switch when he gets inside, leaves the door open for Sam as he shrugs off his jacket and throws it onto the nearest bed.

He'd asked for singles before he'd realized it and then he'd spent the rest of the week ignoring the not-quite-right feeling of having a room this big to himself.

Sam shuts the door behind him, looking it over. If the décor in here surprises him as much as the rest of the place he doesn't say. Instead he looks over at the cork board leaning up against one corner of the room, at the maps of the town, the clippings, and the black and white pictures pinned to it along with ripped pieces of paper filled with Dean's notes. Carol had thrown a fit when she'd come in to find Dean attempting to tape stuff to the wall, yelled at him about something to do with the authentic wall paper—whatever that meant, wallpaper is wallpaper as far as he's concerned—and told him to stay put. She'd come in with the board and some pins and told him to have at it.

Sam doesn't move away from the door. "Looks like you've settled pretty well."

Dean's emptying out his pockets, unfolding all the new messy notes to add to the board and he lifts his head, takes a slow look around the room. Doesn't really get it. He's got about as much shit here as usual. Sure he actually knows everyone by name already but this isn't exactly a big town either. He shrugs. "I guess."

Then Sam scoffs, shoulders hitching in a humorless laugh and Dean thinks it looks like he wants to take a chunk out of somebody. So much for zen.

"Why did you leave?"

"Found a case. You and Bobby were busy." He shrugs, thumb smoothing the paper in his hand open, rubbing over the creases.

"You've been gone almost two weeks. We didn't even know where you were."

Dean sets the papers aside, braces his hands on the edge of the bed and looks up at Sam. "Well you're here. Obviously finding me wasn't too much of a problem. And I'm good right?"

"Look, Dean, you can't just disappear—"

"Man," he laughs, short and hard, "that's a little rich coming from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Really, Sam? Really?"

"Dean. I left because you—"

Dean stands, rubs a hand over his face and turns his back on him. "Yeah. Yeah, Sam."

"Yeah. Just keep turning away from me, man. You say you're working a case but I get here and I find you in a bar. And I'm willing to bet you've got that damned flask tucked away right there."

Dean shakes his head, let's out a strained laugh. "Yeah. You know what. Fuck you, Sam." He grabs up his jacket, ignores the way Sam straightens to his full height, jaw tightening and readying for a full on fight. But Dean's not in the mood.

He walks around Sam and jerks the door open. "Nobody asked you to come here. You wanted time and I gave you fucking time," he says.

"That was _before_ , Dean."

Before. Shit. _Before_. Just the word has Dean feeling phantom marks on his throat, the clear imprints of Sam's fingers stamped on his hips and waist. It makes his back snap straight and he has to keep from clenching down at the remembered feel of come slipping out even as he'd grabbed his keys on the pretext of going for a drive, seeing what's what then hightailing it out of there, leaving Sam stranded with Bobby.

Dean pauses at the door and glances back at Sam. The corners of Sam's mouth are taut and he's got this look on his face like he doesn't know if he wants to be in the same room with Dean or if he wants to grab him and fix him to the spot. It hits Dean then, that despite what they did, he never once kissed Sam. Which doesn't make sense because Sam's got this wide, pliable looking mouth. Yeah. Dean needs some time out.

"This isn't going to work, you know," Sam says, voice quiet, "it's not going to go away."

Dean sighs, steps out into the corridor. "I'll be back."

"Leaving again?"

Dean tightens his jaw, his hand clenching around the door handle, the grooves of the little vines carved into the brass digging into the meat of his hand. "Getting some pie."

He doesn't slam the door, but it's a close call.

~

He's sitting outside on the swing. The flask is pressed against his thigh and the paper plate on his lap is empty, pie scraped clean. He didn't lick the rest off but he'd been tempted.

It creaks as he swings lightly. The breeze is a soft thing. He can barely feel the coolness of it but it ripples over his hair now and then and he tips his head forward, lets it do what it can to soothe him.

The back of his throat is still feeling the sting of that last gulp from the flask. He's not buzzed or anything but he is feeling warm.

The lights have long since gone off inside and same for all the occupied buildings in the town. There's only the faint glow at the corner of the street from the street lights. The road the Bed and Breakfast is on doesn't have any and the porch light is broken.

Dean rocks back and forth, feet planted on the floor and one arm thrown over the back of the swing.

He doesn't turn around when he hears the door to the B&B open, the sound of bells too loud in the silence.

He stays that way, just barely swinging when Sam stops beside the swing, gazing out with him.

"It's quiet," Sam says.

"Usually is."

There's a pause right there and then Sam walks around in front of Dean, momentarily blocking his view, making Dean look up at him in the shadows of the house only to see nothing but the back of Sam's head.

Sam moves to sit down beside him except he jerks a little, an aborted move. He's looking at the flask leaning against to Dean's thigh.

Saying nothing, Dean picks it up, casual as anything and screws the lid back on. He tucks it away and settles back, making the swing creak again. He goes back to staring out and waits. If this were any other time then maybe he would've cracked a joke about Sam's weight taking out the swing. But as it is he doesn't. Just keeps waiting.

Eventually there's the louder sound of metal grinding against metal as the swing takes on Sam's weight. It's not exactly roomy and when Sam sits his arm is pressed against Dean's, his knee bumping against Dean's. He feels warm. He wonders why it's taken him so long to realize that Sam's always warm.

Dean decides to tempt fate, plants his feet again and tips the balance of the swing, making it rock and the chain complain with a screech.

"So. You think it's a curse."

Huh. He'd been expecting more of a push on their current angst issue. But he's willing to roll with it. "Yeah. Three women. Back in the 1920's. Town tried to run them out."

"I saw. Witches?"

"Yup."

"And anyone who tries to leave…"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"And if they stay, then…same thing?"

Dean nods. "From what I've seen? Yeah. Bitches are taking the town bit by bit. Half of the place is abandoned and the only people left are too scared of what will happen to them if they try to leave. So they stay put." He shrugs. "It just takes them anyway."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam nodding. The swing tips beneath him as Sam leans forward to clasp his hands, elbows resting on his knees, and eyes squinting out into the dark.

"You could've asked me for help. I would've come with you."

Dean sighs, scoots lower in the seat and let's his head drop back to stare at the ceiling. "Help for what Sam."

"With this case. With whatever is screwing with you right now."

"There's always something screwing with me." He rubs his hands over his face, drops one back to the small space between them, fingers immediately tapping out a rhythm on the wood. "It's just the way I roll," he aims a smile Sam's way and is met by a fierce glare instead.

"How long are you gonna keep going like this? Yeah. I was pissed. Yeah, I still am. But picking up and running away? Man, that's not like you."

"And here I was thinking we were gonna skip the Oprah side of things. The case is under control."

"Yeah but it could've gone a hell of a lot faster with the both of us here to figure out."

"Not denying that. But same as you needed space and worked cases on your own, I need it too. That's all."

Sam stands up and Dean has to brace his feet harder to keep the swing from shaking all over the place. "I'm not buying it man. Is this—is this you being pissed? About me needing time out because, Dean, I swear to god if you don't understand why I needed—"

"S'not always about you, Sammy."

Sam's mouth snaps shut.

Before either of them can say anything else though, the lights come on inside and they both turn to look as a disheveled-looking Carol, still wrapped in her robe rushes at the door, barefoot. She yanks at the door and it hits the bells a lot harder than usual, making them both wince.

"Dean," her eyes are wide as they jump from Dean to Sam and she's shoving her hair back from her face, "I just got a call from Harris. He says he can hear them—by the bar." She swallows fast.

Shit. He hadn't been paying attention to the fucking time.

"Let's go, Sam," he grinds out.

Sam doesn't question that, is right behind Dean when he moves. They're already at the corner, running when he thinks to turn back and point a finger in Carol's direction.

"Stay inside."

Sam is one step behind him, gun in hand.

The main street is completely devoid of people but there is noise. Like something large snapping and being crippled, wood creaking under heavy weight, getting ripped into and giving in. Fuck. They're not gonna make it.

"The curse?" Sam huffs, running right beside him.

"Look at the buildings," Dean bites out. And it's there, the kudzu, as if it's running alongside them, rippling and doubling over the buildings, rushing in the same direction as them and moving en masse.

At least they know they're going in the right direction.

They're half way up the main road when the noise stops, the rippling movement of the kudzu dying down with it.

"Damn it," Dean grits out and that's the thing they do, where they're in sync, understanding what's happening because Sam starts running even harder at the exact same moment Dean does, knows instinctively as Dean does, that the silence isn't good.

The house is just around the corner from the bar.

Sam and Dean slow to a stop as it comes into view.

There's no missing it.

It’s like the windows and doors never existed. The glass on the windows is cracked, the thick vines of the kudzu woven and coiled tight to break in through the corners of the windows. The door has been broken off its hinges where the kudzu dislocated it.

They both stand there, staring at the place.

Dean swallows, still breathing hard. When Sam starts forward Dean reaches for him and grabs hold of his arm.

"There's no point."

Sam looks around at him, eyebrows low and question already forming.

"There won't be anyone inside. They're gone."

~

The light of the kitchen is soft and the clock is a sharp, neat sound just over the hum of the fridge.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Carol is huddled against the counter, arms wrapped tight around herself and staring out the window.

Sam's sitting next to Dean. Neither of them has slept much since the previous night's disaster.

The town went on high alert after that, the entire population had piled into the Inn, as the bar, the usual gathering place, was deemed unsafe for being so close to the latest victimized house.

It had taken them a few hours to go in, to help clear out what they could and look for any clues that Dean might have missed before but they’d found nothing. Dean hadn’t been all that surprised and neither had Sam. Carol had stayed with them. It was like the town had appointed her as babysitter so she was forced to stick around with hem, a silent presence.

They’d searched the house top to bottom but the family that had been inside were gone. There'd been signs that they'd been there, scratch marks on the wooden floors of the bedroom, like they'd been dragged out of their beds but no trails leading out of the house.

Dean's got the board he had in his room on the table and the permanent marker moving across, marking down the places he'd already checked out.

The emergency meeting had lasted well into the early morning, people too jacked up on fear and adrenalin to go back to their homes and try and get some decent sleep for the night. Which meant that they hadn’t gotten any sleep either.  
This is why right now, even the weak light is making Dean keep his head down, eyes narrowed on the map in front of him. They itch like hell and feel over sensitive. It’s been a while since they’ve pulled an all-nighter. It's surprisingly easy to get used to a decent night's sleep when they're having to keep under wraps.

He tries to rub the grit from his eyes, thumb and forefinger not too gentle either, but it feels like he's just made it worse when he drops his hand to the table and stares at the map.

That's the third family in the space of two weeks.

"The mines," Dean says, jaw locked, "that's the only place left that I can think of."

"But that's—" Carol comes over to the table too, glaring at Dean, "you can't do that. It's worse over there, you don't know how the damn kudzu will react, it could just—"

"Wait." Sam cuts in, looking from Dean to Carol. There's a bitchy hint to his frown which kind of has Dean confused because he doesn't understand what there is to be bitchy about in this situation. "Technically this entire town is dangerous. The kudzu is all over the place. What's so different about it over by the mines?"

Carol wraps her arms tighter around herself. She swallows. "It doesn't matter what time of day it is over there. The town? Sure, that's fine. We know chances are we don't get anything during the day but people who've gone over there just disappear, day or night. It doesn't make much of a difference there."

Dean sets the pen down. "Look. We don't have time to look for areas where fucking plants won't try to strangle us, okay? This whole thing is out of control. Their bodies aren't anywhere else right? And that's one of the only things still standing from their time."

Sam nods, leans forward, eyes scanning the map too. "It's further from town too. Right on the outskirts but won't take long to drive to." He frowns, glances at Dean. "I may have seen it on my way in, close to that abandoned store."

Carol nods. "Yeah, it's not that far from there. The store owner was actually the first person to leave." Her gaze drops. She shrugs and looks away. "To try anyway. That's when things started to get bad. We hadn't actually lost anyone yet." She gives Dean a small smile and a shrug. "Guess you should've come sooner Mr. Knight in Shining armor."

Dean's mouth twists into a smile—not quite making it. "What can I say? I like to make an entrance."

She lets out a soft laugh and then pushes away from the counter. "Well, I need to get ready for work," her smile fades when her gaze moves from Dean to Sam.

When he looks, he finds Sam leaning back in his chair, fingers locked together where his hands rest on his stomach. There's a tick to his jaw and he's staring at Dean, flat eyed and clearly pissed about something. "Let me know what you've decided before you do anything stupid. I'll try asking around, see if there's anything else that might help." She nods in Sam's direction and touches Dean's shoulder as she walks out of the kitchen.

Dean picks up the coffee mug on the table and brings it to his mouth. He refuses to look away first.

"That's great Sam. Piss off the people needing help why don't you."

"You realize if they'd asked for help sooner they wouldn't be in this situation. Since the _1920's_ Dean."

"And just who were they supposed to ask, Sam?" The coffee hits him just right, soothing the tension he can feel building back up just from being left alone with his brother.

He doesn't get it, doesn't get what has Sam so worked up because if he's still that pissed that he doesn't want to be around Dean then there's no reason for him to be here.

"And since when do you blame the people being maimed?"

"I didn't say they were to blame," he grits out. "I'm just saying this could've been avoided."

"And again, who were they supposed to ask for help? In case your memory needs some jogging the majority of people have no idea what hunters are. Hell, the majority of them think we're nutcases and want to lock us up."

"My memory's fine!" Sam snaps.

Dean stops mid sip, glancing at Sam, apprehension filling him slowly. "Sam."

Sam sighs, tries to burn a hole into the table with his non-existent laser vision. "It’s fine, Dean."

Dean narrows his eyes on him. "Yeah, okay."

Sam opens his mouth as if to say something else, snaps it shut, expression blanking over like a stone.

Dean waits.

"You two seem friendly."

"Come again?"

But Sam just shakes his head. The chair scrapes over the floor as Sam pushes himself back from it, planting his hands on the table as he stands up and starts picking up everything they've set up on the table.

"Nothing."

Dean lifts the mug so he can snatch the map and start rolling that up too. He's feeling a bit confused as to what's happening right now.

"Let's just get what we need and hit the road. Better if we get there before dark right? The sooner we do this the sooner we leave." Then, stuff tucked under his arm, he stalks out of the kitchen, leaving Dean looking after him.

It's not until he finishes his coffee that he realizes Sam's pretty much just told Dean he's not leaving him alone.

~

It creeps Dean out a little. It's not the same feeling as being in the woods or something like that. That shit doesn't bother Dean but this.

They've stopped just shy of going out of town, parked the car close to the railing that runs alongside the narrow road that barely fits in the two lanes. The other side of the road is flanked by trees, big ones, thick with bushes that would tear the crap out of someone's face before they let anyone pass through. Dean frowns as he stares up at them. There's no sign of the bark, thick vines enveloping, tangled up with each other as they wrap around the entire length of the trunks. He can't see the branches either. There's that soft sweet smell mingling with the road dust that's getting right up in his nose. It's like something out of some Fairytale book or something.

The roof of the Impala is cool under his hand. Despite the sun being out, the air is tinged with a cold damp that makes him reach back and jerk the lapels of his jacket up around his neck. He squints against the sunlight as he turns to look at Sam.

He's standing at the rails, hands tucked into his jacket pockets and staring down at Havenview, back turned to Dean. Dean let's his gaze linger on his brother for a second, allowing himself the few stolen seconds.

When he turns to place both his arms atop the roof, the flask shifts against his chest. He thinks he feels the slosh of liquid inside it but doesn't move to touch it. From inside the Impala, a static laden golden oldie strains to be heard, spilling out into the quiet silence.

"This look normal to you?" he speaks, finally.

Sam turns to look at him. More a flick of a glance really before he follows the direction Dean tips his head in.

The outskirts of the town are surrounded by the same trees that line the road. There's a little cove right at the beginning of it though and from there Dean can see the dilapidated store with its crappy sign across from it standing out like an eyesore. He shields his eyes from the sun as he follows the line of land where it ends and the drop of it, sloping down, down, down to walls of hard rock and ground barely peeking from behind a whole lot of tangled green. It's the same down the slope. They're going to have to pick their way through it and just hope Carol is wrong and that it won't just drag them down.

Sam's eyeing the whole thing, mouth flat, and hands digging harder into his pockets. "It's full of it. We need to move fast. Find the entrance." He aims a look at the sky. "We've still got some daytime left. If we're in by then, then… maybe we'll be good to look around."

Dean nods. "Alright." He taps the roof before opening the door and sliding back into the car, waiting for Sam to get in too. It's not that far a drive and the sooner they get there the more time they'll have to find their way inside.

Sam gets inside and slams the door shut. Dean reaches over and clicks the radio off because the woman wailing out what's probably meant to be a soulful tune is doing nothing for him other than making him want to stick his fingers in his ears and scrape the sound away. He regrets it though, the second the space inside the car clears and it's suddenly just him and Sam, no distractions.

He thinks about dragging up some of his tapes but Sam is watching him. So he puts the car into gear and turns it back into the rough road leading out to the store and the mines.

~

They park a little ways from the store. Dean's eyeing the kudzu around them and the side of the slope, trying to judge how fast those things can get to the car but if what he's seen of it in town is anything to go by then truth is no amount of running will get them out of range if it decides to suck them down.

And Dean doesn't think it'll be feeling too friendly when it realizes it's under threat from them.

Sam’s bent over the trunk of the car, shoving weapons aside. The sky’s shifting, colors darkening to the buttery colors of late afternoon. Dean doesn't like the looks of it. He can hear the crickets, a constant wave of chirps that stays with them as they sift systematically through their weapons, leaving aside guns in favor of salt and blow torches. Dean pats himself down, making sure he has his lighter on him just in case.

When he looks over, Sam’s already closed the trunk and is leaning against it, arms crossed. He's frowning over at the area they'll have to sift through and when Dean joins him it looks just as grim to him. The odds of them actually getting through all the diabolical kudzu and up to the mine, well, they're not exactly looking to be in their favor.

"Think the curse will actually stop once we get the bones?" Dean asks.

Sam shrugs, still looking out at it. "In theory. Yeah," then he looks at Dean, "but that's if we find the bones."

Still tentative of the elephant sitting right between them, Dean turns and settles back against the car too, adjusting the bag over his shoulder. "Gotta be somewhere. We'll find them."

Sam nods, quick and curt. Then he glances over at Dean, gaze flicking over Dean's face. Dean turns to look back at him, takes in the guarded look that Sam's giving him.

And despite it all, Dean finds himself going first. Maybe he does it because he knows they're short on time and Sam can't actually do much about what he has to say and they can't get into it in a big way right now. And yeah, maybe he's hoping that getting it out of the way now means that he can pretend this conversation never happened.

"Listen," he reaches up and wipes a hand over his forehead, ignores the queasiness in his stomach, the touch of nerves and apprehension that flitter over his spine, putting him on alert more than the hunt itself. Except that, same as with all his ideas of going for things first, he finds his mouth drying up after that one word and can't actually bring himself to say whatever it is he'd had in mind to say.

He'd fucked his brother. His brother had fucked him right back.

Huh. Not much he can say to that. A shrink would probably say it better. Maybe it's something they should think about.

Sam's watching him, waiting.

Dean glances back at him, then at the dirt, kicks at it, squints at some nonexistent point in the distance and shrugs. "Actually, I got nothing."

And at that Sam's mouth twitches at the corner, like he doesn't think it's funny but can't quite help it. He doesn't look away and he doesn't look more pissed than before so Dean can handle that.

"Yeah. Well. I'm not sorry I hit you," Sam says, that curved edge of his mouth still there as he tilts his head to the side, blocking the orangey light of the sun to see Dean better.

Dean doesn't miss a beat. "I'm not sorry I almost broke your nose. Was a little disappointed actually," he leans his head back, trying to get a better look at Sam's nose even though whatever damage had been done wouldn't be visible now after two weeks, "it was a clean blow. Maybe I'm off my game."

"Yeah," Sam says, sarcastic, "that's what it is."

"Right."

There’s a moment of quiet, where Dean just shifts his feet, settles back against the car and leans his hands against it.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?" he kicks at the dirt some more, watches as the dust lifts and settles over his boots.

"It was good."

Those words are low and he knows Sam isn't looking at him anymore, that he's staring at his feet too, hands shoved into his pockets. He's swallowing, convulsive bobs of his Adam's apple giving him away.

Dean pushes away from the car. He's not quite ready to go into _that_ part. But Sam doesn't move, and the quiet takes on a wounded quality that Dean can't quite deal with. It's about time they get on with what they're here to do.

His voice is hoarse, barely loud enough for Sam to hear as he passes by him, not leaving all that much space between him as he does. "Yeah. It was." He reaches out, pushing at Sam's shoulder. "Come on. It's getting dark." He leaves the headlights on just in case although with the sky still bright, they're nothing more than ghostly lights.

Its a few seconds before Sam follows, long strides grinding down on the dirt, eating up the distance faster than Dean so that he's walking right beside him, close enough that their shoulders brush. But Dean pushes that out of mind for now, choosing instead to focus on the mass of vines they're heading into, already scanning the walls of rock that they'll have to get past to reach the mines.

The way down is steep and goose bumps spread over his arms when he steps into a tangle of kudzu, his heart hammering at his chest. They don't stray too far from each other as they pick their way across, trying to keep from sliding all the way down.

The sun doesn't quite reach the slope, leaving them in cool shadow. It has more to do with the plants, though, still at their feet, than anything else.

They make their way in silence, thoughts of their earlier conversation seeping away as sweat starts to bead on his back, his shirt clinging there as they cut across to the peak on the other end. With every step they sink deeper, the kudzu now coming up to his knees, and Dean can feel it through his jeans, feels paranoia licking at his nerves as he waits, just waits for one stray vine to attempt to curl around his ankle, yank him down, drag him off to wherever it's taken all those other people.

When Dean glimpses the boarded up entrance, he stops. Wiping at the sweat on his face, he stares up at it. It might've been safer if they'd walked all the way around but Dean can't really make out a clear path over to it. It's all trees that seem to stretch up forever.

"You see it?"

At his side, Sam has his shirt up, bent over enough that he can use the corner to wipe at his neck, under his chin. He drops it and straightens to look up and after squinting he eases back.

"Yeah. Kind of a climb up."

Dean looks around, can already feel his shoulders cording up with the tension. The kudzu is unmoving, as innocent as anything. The shadow though, has crept over the entire area, the light in the sky receding to allow for the beginnings of a deeper blue. They're going to have to break out the flashlights soon.

"Let's go," he says, and steps forward, feeling the difference as he starts up.

He hasn't taken two steps when Sam grabs at his arm. He turns, startled, and Sam is looking behind him, eyes narrowed, mouth tight. "You smell that?"

Dean's eyes roam over the walls of kudzu. And yeah. It's right there, crept up on him—the sweet smell of it intense as it curls around him so tight he can practically see it roiling around them. The stillness is different now. Dean thinks he can hear a loud ringing in his ears, taste the apprehension, tacky and clinging, at the back of his throat.

"We gotta move." He turns and that's the Go sign.

He was wrong. He hadn't known how fast it could move at all.

It's like a scene out of a movie. They run, sure. They try to but it’s fast, too fast. The kudzu heaves en masse, looking like one giant rippling shadow as it goes, rolling like waves made of thick ropes, reeking of that sickeningly sweet smell as it heads towards them.

"Fuck—"

They're running, tripping as with every step they take, the plants on the floor tighten, snapping to catch their feet like hunting traps. The exertion of the climb is there, Dean can feel it over the top of his knees, a blunt pressure on his shins as they go. He can't reach for his bag, there isn’t time.

He feels the air, cold and rushing against the damp on the back of his neck, sees with some relief that Sam is pulling ahead, and the beams of the Impala's headlights are like a lighthouse, piercing through the wall of writhing vines aiming for them.

A vine snaps around his waist and he rips the thing off, keeps running, lifting his knees up as high up as he can and feeling the muscles of his thighs burning. He curses under his breath. Another leaps out, two this time, for a moment snapping taut against his Adam's apple and slowing him enough that he stumbles, sinking a little lower down, vines swirling above his knees. But Sam's there, breathing hard, wrists straining as he reaches for Dean with kudzu wrapped around them, curling tight enough that Dean sees him wince.

They rip off what they can but it's like standing in quick sand.

"We're close," Sam pants, "come on—" he grabs Dean and heaves him out, gets him loose enough that they manage to scramble up, knees scraping at the slope, hands tearing back at the plants shooting for them and the lights are directly above them now.

"Motherfucking—fucking—"

Sam goes down. Dean turns at the sound of a strangled gasp just in time to see the way the ground just seems to _sink_ under Sam, leaving him chest deep, wide eyes flying to Dean's even as Sam throws himself forward.

Dean grabs at him, catches his hand and grunts as he feels the violent force of Sam being dragged down.

" _Fuck_."

Dean grunts, feels every muscle in his arm wrenching and tightening as he reaches over and wraps it around Sam's neck.

"Dean—" Sam gasps it against his cheek and Dean feels the scrape of stubble on his cheek, the sweat making their cheeks slip where he's pressed his face to Sam's, neck straining as he tries to keep both himself and Sam above the coils. The sweetness is filling his head, he's breathing it in and he tries not to. He tightens his arm around Sam as he feels the tug and tries to pull back; lacking the leverage he needs to do it.

"Dean let go."  
He wants to tell Sam to shut the fuck up—that he's going to beat him to a pulp for that comment alone, but can't spare the effort it would take to get the words out. He can feel the kudzu, can smell it, cold and easy as it wraps further around Sam's neck—hears Sam's strangled breath, warm against his neck, can feel Sam's hand crushing his.

  


Then Sam is swallowed up and his hand slips from Dean's. Torn away.

" _Sam_!"

Dean doesn't move for a few precious seconds as he searches for a sign of Sam, tears at the plants even as they curl, threatening and insidious around him. And then he's moving on autopilot, turning and fighting his way through the vines. He can see the edge where the plants stop and pushes through it, crawling out even as the things wrap around his ankles, but nowhere near as violent as the pull was on Sam.

When he gets to the top his arms are throbbing and he's out of breath. There's dirt on his lips and he can taste it. He hitches himself up with a groan and climbs until he's leaning back against the Impala, watching the kudzu rippling still, as if scenting him out like an animal.

His heart is pounding but he can't move. He stares at the spot where Sam had been. He can still feel the sweaty pressure of Sam's hand on his, trying to hold on to Dean even as the kudzu tried to swallow them both down. The tips of the kudzu snake along the edge of the slope, as if it's trying to catch Dean out with the slightest movement. But he's not even paying attention.

All around him is that skull crushing silence, forcing itself down his ears and he keeps breathing hard, panic a hard vice around his chest.

The lights from the Impala are two beams in the night, like an SOS signal people are too far away to see. He hears the dirt as it's loosened, rocks breaking off to fall into the writhing mass of vines.

And then he starts to feel it. And it's been a while since he's felt it just like this, this level of it, burning a hole through his stomach and leaving his chest feeling like it's on fire and about to burst. He slides off the hood of the car, every movement hard and jerky and he wants to kill something. He's ready for it. Wants to feel the first thing that he comes into contact with come apart under his bare hands.

He grabs the first sharp object that comes to his hand; jaw tight and hands clamped around the crow bar, shoves weapons out of the way, coming close to slicing his palm open on an unsheathed blade before he tugs out the blow torch and slams the trunk shut.

He’ll fucking tear the whole thing down.

~

He breaks it down, slamming his foot into the boards over and over again, tearing at the things with the crowbar, sweat running down his face. He’s on the other side of the slope, the kudzu not as thick there but its coming and he knows it. He can hear the slide of it, roots ripping out of cracked soil as it eats up the space between them. If he looks he can see still see the lights from the Impala, wonders if it’ll even be there when he gets out. If he gets out. The things will probably follow him in there and he needs to move faster than this because—

He blocks out the image of Sam being swallowed up.

Sam’s fine.

He grits his teeth, beats at the boards and then cracks through, two of them ripping away and clattering to the floor. Dust billows out of it, thick and old, coating his face and making him snap his head to the side and cough out the dry old feeling in his mouth, feeling like its crawling up his fucking nose.

He gives up on the crowbar and slams into the remaining ones with his shoulder, feels the torn edges of the one he’d damaged before bite into his shoulder but he clamps down on the hiss of pain. It takes slamming into it twice more before it gives and he crashes through. He lands hard, cheek scraping against the rough ground, but he's up and dragging himself backwards, eyes wild as the susurrus of the kudzu sliding over the firmer ground to get to him reaches him. He spins, blow torch at the ready.

It stops.

It curls around the edges of the broken boards, sliding along the mouth of the entrance and coiling there, like snakes getting ready to strike.

It doesn't slide inside though.

He sits there for a few seconds, still breathing hard. His legs feel like he's run a mile and his entire body feels like he's taken a beating. Eventually he draws himself up though. Keeping his eye on it, he slips the flashlight out of the bag he's brought with him, clicks it on and aims it at the old tunnel behind him.

Dirt falls from the ceiling here and there. There's no sweet smell in here. Just an earthy scent, damp too.

With one last glance at the vines still sliding along the boards and the floor of the entrance, he shines the flashlight ahead of him and follows it.

There are huge metal carts pushed off the small tracks, shoved up against the uneven curving walls of the tunnel.

He walks a little ways into it, eyes the metal work everywhere that is coated with dust but sees nothing out of the ordinary, just an abandoned mine. But then the flashlight hits the back of the tunnel.

There's a turn there but that's not what Dean's looking at.

The wall there looks like stone and it gleams under the light. Spread over it are green vines and delicate looking leaves, those same little lilac flowers that are everywhere inside the B&B back in the town.

He straightens up, walking over to see if he can spot anything else. He has to stop though when he feels the change in the ground beneath him. It's softer, dirt dislodging easily underneath him. He glances back at the vines plastered to the wall.

He swallows, looks down at the floor, watches it, eyes stinging from the perspiration. He takes another step forward and it takes his weight. He feels it sink almost imperceptibly. But the side tunnel is right there. He's careful about the turn, except that as his flashlight swings over to the other tunnel, Dean sees it.

The kudzu rips itself from the walls and he doesn't have time to back off. Takes only a stumbling step back as the vines shoot out and wrap fast and strong from his neck up until his nose is buried in that smell, leaves tickling his skin even as the vines tighten mercilessly. The blowtorch falls from his nerveless fingers, the vines tightening hard enough that they feel like they're about to slice through his wrists.

It's as they start to wrap around his legs that the ground gives.

~

There's blood in his mouth, sticky and thick on the tip of his tongue and the side of his cheek. Something dried caking the corner of his lips. The left side of his face feels kind of numb and there's a weight on him that's tight enough to make him gasp out a breath, feels it press harder as his chest constricts.

There's something wrapped around his face too, tight even all the way down to his neck.

He tries to open his eyes—manages it but not quite. The ground doesn't stay still and it feels like there are little vortex's around the edges of his vision. The area around his left temple is throbbing.

His left eye is sealed shut by the pressure of the cold vines on it but he can just see with his right, a little gap enough for him to try and orientate himself.

There's a slab of pale light, weak and practically fading into the dark, as if the source is too far away, but it's enough that after a few seconds, Dean starts to pick out shapes, distinguishing floor from wall and rolling his eye to the side to see.

He'd fallen through but there's no hole above him. So he's been dragged too. Peachy.

The vines tighten and he winces, groans—his breath wheezes out of him as his lungs attempt not to give under the pressure. He wonders how much more it'll take for ribs to start cracking.

His arm is strapped to his back and the second he tries to move it, the pain that shoots through it isn't much of an encouragement. It makes sense, the way his shoulder is bent back isn't normal.

But he can work with this. He breathes out slower, thinks that maybe if this thing is reacting like a snake it'll tighten the more he breathes and moves.

He's got his lighter there. Might not send any supernatural fucking plant flying off him but it might affect it enough to loosen up.

He braces himself. Just attempting to move is going to kill what little resistance to pain he has left. He's counting it down in his head, eyes fixed on the wall. He realizes what it actually is that he's seeing.

It's like something out of alien pod movie. He's either seeing things—wouldn't be surprised with the blow he'd taken to the head—or those are people, covered up to the neck in vice like vines. All lined up, heads hanging, fingers peeking through, bent at odd angles, some already have little flowers growing around them, like they're a permanent part of the cave now.

Dean grunts as the kudzu wraps tighter as he nudges his chin down to try and see how far down it goes, squints as the light gets stronger the lower down he manages to look.

He freezes. He tries to clear his vision, open his eye wider to make sure that's what he's seeing.

Right at the back, the flashlight shining out and leaving the area behind it in dark, rests against a long bone. Leg bone—that's a skeletal foot, bent the wrong way. Hands, long and grey looking bones, Dean can't tell how many there are but they’re clutching something. He can only make out a familiar flower, the rest too hard for him to see from where he is.

His heart is pounding so hard he's surprised the ground beneath him isn't shaking with it.

The witches.

The original three that had been locked down here and left to starve to death without any means of getting back to the surface.

Son of a bitch.

Forget the fucking count down.

A yell bursts out of him, echoes into the surrounding dark as he twists. His eyes sting and his shoulder—beyond pain, like fire and ice at it's worse, fusing together to burn a hole in his bones as he stretches, pushes past the pain and the way the kudzu constricts more and more, the tips of his fingers edging into his back pocket.

He doesn't look at the wall as he does it. Doesn't want to see if there's a familiar mop of hair and big ass hands hanging there, limp and lifeless. So he bites into his bottom lip, his groans muffled against it as he feels his lashes dampen, blinking away the tears as they squeeze out with the pain, involuntary. His arm feels like it’s being wrenched off all over again.

His fingers brush the hard corner of the lighter.

He shoves his hand in.

Just a little more.

Almost there.

Fuck. Fuck. It’s crushing his goddamn throat.

He pulls it out.

It takes three tries.

It makes a sound. Not the actual plant but he hears it, grating at his ears, like wind blowing but louder, closer to echoing screeches as it peels away from him in a hurry at the first touch of the flame. And for a moment he can't do much more than lie there, gasping air back into his lungs, coughing and coughing, arm still behind his back as he attempts to hack out a few organs.

His leg feels pretty busted too.

Dean looks towards the skeletons. They're actually sitting huddled together. He doesn't feel a flicker of pity.

Above him the kudzu is swarming, as if readying itself for the next attack, fearful of the flame, sentient.

He thinks of Sam disappearing under the vines.

Dean starts crawling.

~

He's hot and something is pressing him down. Weight all along his back and for a moment the air seizes, trapped in his chest—which fucking hurts like a _mother_ —except the thing on his back shifts a little, then stills.

"Dean?"

Dean doesn't open his eyes. If anything he squeezes them tighter, turns his face into what's probably a pillow.

A tentative hand closes over the side of his waist.

"Dean."

His throat feels like it's cracked inside and when he swallows it makes him wish he hadn't. Whiskey might help with that, burn the way and smooth it over maybe.

"Yeah?"

That's what he tries to say. It comes out as a rasp, straining his vocal cords and leaving his throat feeling even worse, like now he's passed a cheese grater over it too, nice and slow just to feel the cuts deeper. He doesn't make it past a whisper.

A strong hand presses against the side of his face, a careful thumb passing over the bump Dean can feel there all too clearly and he opens his eyes in a glare even though it sets off little men in tin boots kicking around in his head.

Sam's lying beside him, brows creased, eyes jumping all over Dean's face like he's never seen it before. His lips are curved downward, making them soft, and Dean thinks back on how they never actually kissed. Before. During. The whole thing had been fucked anyway.

It would've been nice though.

Go down swinging and all that jazz.

He smirks a little and Sam leans back, gives Dean a worried look, like he's afraid Dean's lost it.

Dean's entire face hurts as he feels the smile grow wider on his face and thinks that maybe it's worth the effort after all.

"Dude," he refuses to lose his smile over how much that hurts, "we got beaten up by flowers."

He sees it, sees the way Sam's cheeks suck in the tiniest bit like they always do when he's trying not to smile.

"It's not funny Dean."

Dean snorts softly, turns his face a little into the pillow. "Is."

"You set a fire down there."

He grunts. "Curse."

Sam nods. "Yeah. It was catching quick though." He looks wry, a little embarrassed too. "We're lucky Carol was pissed enough we didn't warn her about going that she was on her way out there."

Yup. She's as close to the perfect woman as Dean can imagine. But he's staring at the mole on Sam's face as Sam speaks and he can't really bring himself to make more than a hum for a reply.

"The last family?"

Dean opens his eyes again, figuring that's invitation enough for Sam to continue. Sam's thumb moves from Dean's temple to the corner of Dean's mouth and Dean's attention sharpens a little.

"They were still alive."

And Dean will feel good about that later. But when Sam doesn't add to that he remembers the amount of bodies he'd seen against the wall as he'd sat there, the flames from the bundle that had been the curse—just a cloth with household herbs in it, tied together with a vine of kudzu, its flower for growth—burned.

Shit.

"Carol left you pie. The town's kind of falling all over itself trying to keep us comfortable. It's a little weird."

Dean huffs out a laugh.

"And Carol said you didn't have to lie. Said you could've just told her you were gay from the start."

Dean chokes, pushing away from Sam only to swear, and swear again when the first swear hurts just as bad, at the soreness of his shoulder. The pain that knifes up his leg. Yeah. He'd forgotten about that one too.

But Sam's hand moves, soothing and careful, to the back of his head, threading through his hair, almost a perfect mimicry of when he'd fucked Dean into the floor.

"Next time…" Sam hesitates, then goes on when Dean watches and waits, "next time—just." He shrugs a shoulder and doesn't go on, chews on the inside of his cheek as he watches Dean like he's trying to figure something out. "Stay, Dean."

He thinks this is the second time since he went and picked Sam up at Stanford, that Sam has asked him to stay. And the world is fucked up this time round with the Leviathans running around in it. But it's not ending.

Puts a whole new spin on things.

So he does the only thing he knows how. He chokes down the feeling that what Sam is saying should be said to someone better, chances the bone jarring pain by scooting closer and licks his lips, let's them quirk up into another smile when Sam zeroes in on the action.

"Next time, just try not to make me one with the floor, Sammy." He chances lifting his head and feels the movement all the way down to his toes. Not in a nice way either. But it’s worth it for the clear look of surprise on Sam's face, and for the way Sam's mouth falls open underneath his easily, hand coming up to support Dean's neck as he lets Dean slip inside, slick and easy and soft. So fucking soft. Dean feels that little slip of knowledge settle in his stomach, warm and good.

Sam's got a soft fucking mouth.

When Dean pulls away with a gentle suck to Sam's bottom lip and settles back down, Sam drops his head onto the pillow and stares up at the ceiling, running his tongue over his bottom lip and tugging at it briefly with a hint of teeth.

"Deal."

THE END


End file.
